Selenium

A browser automation server for web testing and scraping.

Selenium is the standard framework for automating web browsers. The standalone Chrome deployment provides a remotely-accessible browser instance for running automated tests, web scraping, and browser-based automation tasks. Self-hosting avoids the cost of cloud browser services like BrowserStack or Sauce Labs.

Alternatives considered

Cloud Hosted

Tool	Open Source	Free Tier	Monthly Cost
BrowserStack	No	No	From $29/mo
Sauce Labs	No	No	From $39/mo

Self Hosted

Tool	Open Source	Full Features	Notes
Playwright	Yes	Yes	Local only; no remote grid

Installation

Architecture

• Deployment: Single selenium deployment in the selenium namespace (standalone Chrome)
• Image: selenium/standalone-chrome:133.0.6943.126-chromedriver-133.0.6943.126-20250222 (digest-pinned)
• Storage: dshm emptyDir with medium: Memory for Chrome shared memory; no persistent storage
• Networking: ClusterIP service with ports for WebDriver (hub) and noVNC viewer; HTTPRoute via public gateway

Security

No securityContext configured. Basic auth via SE_ROUTER_USERNAME/SE_ROUTER_PASSWORD from SOPS secret protects the WebDriver endpoint.

Updates

Managed by Renovate. Image is digest-pinned.

Data Management

No persistent storage. Stateless browser automation service.

User Management

Basic auth via SE_ROUTER_USERNAME/SE_ROUTER_PASSWORD from SOPS-encrypted secret. No OIDC.

Configuration Management

• Router credentials and session limits from SOPS-encrypted secret
• SE_VNC_NO_PASSWORD and other settings from env vars

Administration

Usage

Point Selenium WebDriver clients at the hub endpoint to run browser automation jobs. Use the noVNC interface to watch sessions visually for debugging. Connect from CI pipelines (e.g., Gitea Actions) for running browser-based integration tests against internal services.

Cluster-specific deviations from the above live in the per-cluster README — see k8s/apps/talos/selenium/README.md.

Cluster Deployment

App URLs

• selenium.web.kueber.eu

Depends on

• Envoy Gateway

Selenium — Talos cluster

Cluster-specific notes only. General product info, "why we use it", and alternatives live in docusaurus/docs/apps/selenium.mdx.

Deviations from defaults

Defaults live in docusaurus/docs/apps/selenium.mdx — document anything this cluster does differently here, with a one-line reason.

Kubernetes Metadata

• Image: selenium/standalone-chrome:133.0.6943.126-chromedriver-133.0.6943.126-20250222@sha256:c53f878fd122d65f8e6f07968362571981873b37e03aedf2fdc9a6dae2bec45c

Rendered manifests (kustomize build)

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  annotations:
    kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/force: enabled
  labels:
    app: selenium
  name: selenium
  namespace: selenium
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: selenium
      homepage: active
      ingress: public
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: selenium
        homepage: active
        ingress: public
    spec:
      containers:
        - env:
            - name: SE_NODE_MAX_SESSIONS
              value: '5'
            - name: SE_NODE_OVERRIDE_MAX_SESSIONS
              value: 'true'
            - name: SE_ROUTER_USERNAME
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  key: username
                  name: selenium
            - name: SE_ROUTER_PASSWORD
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  key: password
                  name: selenium
            - name: SE_VNC_NO_PASSWORD
              value: 'true'
          image: >-
            selenium/standalone-chrome:133.0.6943.126-chromedriver-133.0.6943.126-20250222@sha256:c53f878fd122d65f8e6f07968362571981873b37e03aedf2fdc9a6dae2bec45c
          name: selenium
          ports:
            - containerPort: 4444
            - containerPort: 7900
          resources:
            limits:
              cpu: 1000m
              memory: 2Gi
            requests:
              cpu: 500m
              memory: 1Gi
          volumeMounts:
            - mountPath: /dev/shm
              name: dshm
      volumes:
        - emptyDir:
            medium: Memory
            sizeLimit: 2Gi
          name: dshm